News:

The Book of the Diner is well worth preserving. I only wish it had reached a broader audience when it might have mattered more. That is a testament to the blindness of our culture. If there is a future to look back from, one difficult question historians will have to ask is how we let this happen, when so many saw it coming. This site has certainly aggregated enough information and critical thinking to prove that.[/b]

Riders from the Standing Rock, Rosebud, and Lower Brule Lakota reservations came together on horseback to push back a police line that had formed between a group of protesters and the entrance to the Dakota Access Pipeline construction site. Daniella Zalcman

Last week, the federal government gave final approval to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which will run for 1,172 miles to transport crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken oilfields to Patoka, Illinois.

Hundreds of protesters, primarily Lakota and Dakota from Native American reservations within a several-hundred-mile radius, convened over the weekend at the edge of the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota to voice their anger.

The pipeline would travel through lands sacred to the Lakota people, and cross under the Missouri, Mississippi, and Big Sioux rivers.

A possible spill, which can occur with pipelines, would mean contaminating farmland and drinking water for millions.

After a series of tense interactions with North Dakota state police on Monday, the protesters succeeded in temporarily halting the beginning stages of construction.

Protesters stand at the front barricades of the protest zone, holding signs that read “Water is sacred” and “Mni Wiconi” (“Water is life” in Lakota). Daniella Zalcman

Horses and riders from the Rosebud reservation arrive to support the Standing Rock community. The horses are in traditional Lakota regalia. Daniella Zalcman

Protesters congregate next to a construction site for the Dakota Access Pipeline on Monday morning, as a crew arrives with machinery and materials to begin cutting a work road into the hillside. The flag in the foreground belongs to the American Indian Movement. Daniella Zalcman

North Dakota state police form a line between the protesters and the entrance to the construction site as a tank truck turns into the property. Daniella Zalcman

A protester is arrested for standing on the outer layer of barricades that separate the protest site from the police line and construction zone on Monday morning. Daniella Zalcman

A protester is arrested for standing on the outer layer of barricades that separate the protest site from the police line and construction zone on Monday morning. Daniella Zalcman

Two young Lakota boys watch as construction machinery drives onto the Dakota Access Pipeline construction site, just over a mile from the banks of the Missouri River. Daniella Zalcman

After the protesters disrupted the construction site and shut down work for the day, a group marched up to the main gates. Daniella Zalcman

Children play in the Missouri River, a mile from the proposed construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Daniella Zalcman

Kate Bubacz is a Senior Photo Editor for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

(ANTIMEDIA Op-Ed) North Dakota — As the Lakota Sioux continue their peaceful blockade of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline, the story’s absence from the national media narrative is palpable. Considering the corporate media’s chronic quest for controversial stories on government versus public standoffs, you’d think this situation would garner the typical media frenzy invoked during a right-wing militia occupation of a federal building, for example, or a tense standoff between the Black Lives Matter movement and police. But it’s not.

As of late, the media has faced criticism for its selective coverage of certain events — like, say, focusing on single terror attacks in Western Europe that garner thousands of headlines while basically ignoring similar or worse attacks that occur on a constant basis in Muslim-majority countries.

But the confrontation unfolding in North Dakota, in particular, is strikingly similar to the recent standoff at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, which involved a right-wing militia advocating land rights against the federal government. The militia was led by the controversial Bundy family, which previously drew sensationalized coverage during a similar standoff in Nevada in 2014. So why were these stories covered extensively while the other — also centered around land rights — has been mostly ignored?

The first point is actually very simple: Native Americans standing up for themselves is not polarizing. In an age of institutionalized media divisiveness and hyper-partisanship, the story of Native Americans in North Dakota fighting for land and water rights just doesn’t fit the script of deep, societal divides plaguing the nation’s law and order, nor does it fit in with the left-right paradigm. People from both sides of the political spectrum pretty much agree that Native Americans have been screwed by the U.S. government and resource-snatching corporations long enough. Considering this sentiment, there’s really no exploitable controversy on this issue from the mainstream media perspective, which inherently drives topical, superficial news narratives.

It’s easy to create a controversy out of right-wing white nationalist militias occupying an obscure federal wildlife preserve building (if that sounds petty and not exactly newsworthy, that’s because it was petty and not exactly newsworthy). I witnessed liberals so incensed by the Oregon occupiers they were calling for the FBI to literally gun them down. Meanwhile, the alt-right movement hailed them as heroes and harbingers of the second American Revolution. It made for a great, divisive controversy. But in the end, nothing was accomplished. It was topical. It was superficial. It was essentially meaningless — and the media loved it so much it dedicated a month’s worth of prime time TV coverage to it.

In contrast, the only thing the mainstream media would accomplish by publicizing the growing tribal opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline would be to effectively kill the prospects of the pipeline. Providing ongoing coverage would likely inspire national outrage toward the oil company, Dakota Access LLC, and the government agencies currently trying to evict the indigenous people from their own ancestral lands.

It’s important to understand that the media doesn’t always cover certain stories just because they’re actually newsworthy. Often, the media’s coverage is intended to promote and drive narratives, and the divisive flavor has been a top seller for a long time. This coverage has accomplished at least one thing in the United States: the country is now the most divided it’s been in a very long time. Maybe that has been the media’s intention all along.

The second and more obvious reason why mainstream outlets have not focused on the situation in North Dakota is money — oil money, to be exact. The corporate media in the United States is deeply in bed with oil interests. From fracking advertisements on MSNBC to individuals on Big Oil’s payroll literally working for Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, the ties cannot be understated. Why would mainstream media publicize a standoff that could potentially kill an oil pipeline when their own financial interests would be negatively affected? The answer is they wouldn’t.

And there you have it. That’s why right-wing militias pointlessly occupying a wildlife refuge is one of the biggest stories of the century but Native Americans stopping the construction of a multibillion-dollar pipeline isn’t worth a single headline on CNN.

This article (Why There’s a Media Blackout on the Native American Oil Pipeline Blockade) is an opinion editorial (OP-ED). The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of Anti-Media. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Nick Bernabe and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

Yes, Bundy ranch characters can be publicised because the public will love to hate them. They are different and weird, outsiders though and through, from the hair on their heads to the soles of their feet. They will be shunned!

Native Americans in contrast run the risk of engendering sympathy if they are publicised too much and Suzy cream cheese types may rally to their cause in droves. That is not something that will please our corporate overlords so fuck the Indians. It is not that everyone has sympathy for the American Indian but just as with cute puppies, enough feel warm and fuzzy about them to make a problem. Media does not want problems. They want advertiser dollars. They also want a pipeline.

Protest against the pipeline at Standing Rock Reservation. John Heminger.

In North Dakota, indigenous activists are continuing to protest the proposed $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline, which they say would threaten to contaminate the Missouri River. More than a thousand indigenous activists from dozens of different tribes across the country have traveled to the Sacred Stone Spirit Camp, which was launched on April 1 by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The protests have so far shut down construction along parts of the pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has also sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over its approval of the pipeline. For more, we’re joined by Dave Archambault, chairperson of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He’s in Washington, D.C., where there is a hearing in the tribe’s lawsuit on Wednesday.

TRANSCRIPTThis is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to look at North Dakota, where indigenous activists are continuing to protest the proposed $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline, which they say would threaten to contaminate the Missouri River.

AMY GOODMAN: More than a thousand indigenous activists from dozens of different tribes across the country have traveled to the Sacred Stone Spirit Camp. The protests have so far shut down construction along parts of the pipeline. Protesters have included Debra White Plume, an Oglala Lakota water rights activist.

DEBRA WHITE PLUME: The need to protect this water has grown way beyond Standing Rock. I’m Oglala and Northern Cheyenne. Many red nations are here. Many more red nations are coming. We put the call out for water protectors to come, land defenders to come. And the word “resistance” is being used. And sometimes we have a problem with the English language, deciding which word to use, but if we just listen to our spirits, we’re here to protect sacred water. People will come from all along the river to protect the river that they belong to.

AMY GOODMAN: Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, has also taken part in the protests against the Dakota pipeline. Banks also was part of the 1973 Wounded Knee standoff.

DENNIS BANKS: What’s happening here is equally as important, because of the stand that you’re ready to make. When they threaten the environment, they’re threatening you. We are part mountain. We are part ocean. We are part river. We are part flower and grass and tree. All of this, we are part of all of it, so that when they threaten the environment anyplace, they’re threatening you. You have to be in that mindset like that. That’s who you are. That’s who we are. And our culture, our heritage is what has made us warriors.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Dennis Banks. We’re joined now by Dave Archambault, the chair of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, who’s joining us from Washington, D.C.

Chairman, thanks very much for being with us. Can you explain for us what this whole controversy is about?

DAVE ARCHAMBAULT: There’s a lot of different components that all lead up to one, and it is a pipeline that is threatening the lives of people, lives of my tribe, as well as millions down the river. It threatens the ancestral sites that are significant to our tribe. And we never had an opportunity to express our concerns. This is a corporation that is coming forward and just bulldozing through without any concern for tribes. And the things that have happened to tribal nations across this nation have been unjust and unfair, and this has come to a point where we can no longer pay the costs for this nation’s well-being. We pay for economic development, we pay for national security, and we pay for energy independence. It is at our expense that this nation reaps those benefits. And all too often we share similar concerns, similar wrongdoings to us, so we are uniting, and we’re standing up, and we’re saying, “No more.”

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what exactly the Dakota Access pipeline is and how it ended up going through your land?

DAVE ARCHAMBAULT: Dakota Access pipeline is a pipeline that goes 1,200 miles, taking Bakken crude oil from the northwest side of North Dakota down to Illinois. And we were brought—made aware of this in 2014. And our biggest concern was it was—it crossed the Missouri River twice, once north of—once in Lake Sakakawea and once north of our reservation. And right away, when we first learned of it, we said, “We don’t want this. We don’t want it here.” But it’s a private pipeline from a private company out of Dallas, Texas. And so, there’s a big corporation, Energy Transfer Partners, out of Dallas, who are making decisions for the state and for North Dakota, for my reservation, and they have no sensitivity or no acknowledgment of what is in place. All they see is dollar signs and greed. So we are not happy with this private-based company.

There are portions of this pipeline that cross federal lands, like water, and so they have to get permits, but they get easements on private property. And the private landowners who do not approve of the pipeline, there’s the eminent domain taking. So, the landowners where the pipeline crosses kind of have their hands tied. But in the federal permitting process—and it’s like, of the 1,200 miles, 200 waterways, maybe 300 miles are on federal lands. That’s what we’re saying: If we can’t do anything on the private lands, we’re going to ask the federal agencies to reconsider and take a look at this, because we never had the opportunity to express our concerns.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to Debra White Plume, an Oglala Lakota water rights activist, speaking at the Sacred Stone camp.

DEBRA WHITE PLUME: We’re putting a call out for warriors to come here to do direct action, to stop them from boring under this water, because that’s going to contaminate it. We can’t stand for that. We can’t let that happen. I, for one, made a commitment. They’re going to have to kill me, or they’re going to have to lock me in jail, but I’m going to stand to protect the sacred water. And I’m guided by spirit.

AMY GOODMAN: So that’s Debra White Plume, who participated in the 1973 standoff in which members of the American Indian Movement occupied Wounded Knee to demand their treaty rights. She called for focus in the action at Sacred Stone.

DEBRA WHITE PLUME: I understand that rage. I fought with cops before. I’ve been shot at by police. I’ve been shot by police. We got it on with the police on Pine Ridge back in the day. So I understand that rage. But when we’re here together to protect sacred water, let’s do it with dignity, let’s do it with training, let’s do it with unity.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Chairman Dave Archambault, explain what this camp is, where it is, and how many people are coming out to it, and how the state is responding.

DAVE ARCHAMBAULT: This camp is along the Cannonball River, close to the mouth of Missouri River. And the camp is—started out in April of 2016 as a prayer camp. And the prayers have been answered. There has been power in prayer. And it opened the eyes to everybody that, through prayer and unity, great things can happen. Since the—about two—the demonstrations started, more and more people began coming and showing overwhelming support for this, and we had to anticipate large masses of people coming, so we occupied a space just north of the Cannonball River off the Standing Rock Reservation, which is core land, and it’s on a nice flat.

Right now what’s going on is it’s about peace, and it’s about prayer, and it’s about uniting. And there’s a really good feeling, if you were to walk through the camp. There are no guns, no violence, no drugs, no alcohol. And it kind of took a life of its own. It evolved into something very special.

The state, on the other side, has taken action, which there’s no cause for. They created a barricade just south of Mandan, right before you get into Fort Lincoln, Custer’s park. It’s about 25 miles north of the camp. And this barricade creates a hardship for the members who live on Standing Rock. The state also removed its emergency assistance vehicles, that we initially got to establish and accommodate large masses of people.

AMY GOODMAN: You were arrested there, Chairman?

DAVE ARCHAMBAULT: Yes, I was.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to play Morton County, North Dakota, Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier’s comments, claims he made that there have been reports of weapons at Sacred Stone Spirit Camp, and get your response.

SHERIFF KYLE KIRCHMEIER: It’s turning into an unlawful protest with some of the things that have been done and has been compromised up to this point. We have had incidents and reports of weapons, of pipe bombs, of some shots fired.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s the sheriff. Dave Archambault, your response?

DAVE ARCHAMBAULT: There never was any shots fired. There never were any pipe bombs. There were never any incidents of unlawful activity taking place. When you have a large mass of people in an area, especially with social media, you have Facebook, that can create rumors. And I would ask that the sheriff and the governor validate any rumors that they come across, before they make haste decisions to create a blockade or to declare a state of emergency or to remove any of their emergency assistance vehicles. I understand they have safety concerns, but you just have to be present at the camp, and you’ll see that it’s a peaceful place, and there are happy people who share a common prayer. And that is—

AMY GOODMAN: Chairman, can you explain the lawsuit?

DAVE ARCHAMBAULT: So, what we’re filing a lawsuit on is the destruction of our ancestral burial sites and never being given the opportunity to protect them, as well as the nationwide permitting process. Rather than permitting the project as a whole and doing a full EIS, the Corps of Engineers asked that they permit chunks and pieces of it. And they require an EA. Now, the EA is less intensive as the EIS, so they’re able to kind of do unlawful things, that—such as destroy our sites that are sacred to us.

We don’t agree with the fact—they’re going to say they had consulted with us on this matter. To us, consulting doesn’t mean corresponding through letter or mail, or it doesn’t mean presenting us a final draft of what you’re going to do. Consulting, to us, would mean that we need to have deliberation and share our concerns and hope that they hear us and see a reflection of our concerns in the final plan. None of that has taken place. We asked for consultation prior to any final drafts and to survey the routes to make sure that none of the sites that we cherish would be destroyed. It’s not until after they finalized what they want to do, this Dallas-based company who is doing the EA for the Corps of Engineers tells us how or where they’re going to go. Now they come and invite us to do surveys, and we don’t think that’s right. We think it’s unlawful, and we think it’s unjust.

There is an excellent report at Indian Country Today by Sarah Sunshine Manning:In So many Ways We Have Already WonColonization tragically forced many indigenous people to forget and forsake our innate connection to Earth. But many of us today are beginning to remember. What is taking place in Standing Rock is awakening what once lied dormant in so many of our people: the Earth is our Mother, and Water is Life.

It was late at night when I drove into the conjoined Oceti Sakowin and Red Warrior camp in Standing Rock. I set up camp in the rain with my sisters, crawled into bed, and eagerly anticipated waking up wrapped in the energy of unity that next morning. That is exactly what happened.Water defenders on the frontlines on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota on August 17, 2016. Courtesy John Heminger.Water defenders on the frontlines on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota on August 17, 2016. Courtesy John Heminger.

We woke up to sounds of joy- laughter, conversation, and warm greetings of “Good Morning.” We woke up to lingering fragrances of camp fires, coffee, and smoldering sage and cedar. Near our camp was the central gathering place, where early risers were already congregating over coffee, while others were making huge amounts of breakfast over open fire.

RELATED: Roadblocks Remain While Prayer Camp Stays Peaceful

People of all tribes and many ethnicities gathered. I admit, that I was a little giddy just at the site of a blond gentleman there with his family — a wife and two young children. I admit, that I have been conditioned if not traumatized while living in the Dakotas for the last decade to expect much less than warmth from the majority of non-Natives in the area. But what I immediately saw in the camps at Standing Rock was pure unity of humanity. Unity for Earth, and solidarity for life. And it was beautiful. There were several non-Natives present, standing with the Lakota and Dakota people of Standing Rock as fellow human beings.

Friends and relatives who were there for weeks at the Sacred Stone, Red Warrior, and Oceti Sakowin camps oriented new comers, and shared emotional stories of bravery. They recounted events from the past week when the first non-violent actions of water defending were carried out and the first arrests were made.

We basked in their energy. The powerful energy and joy from those most intense moments endured, even days after the peak of the conflict between water defenders and Dakota Access Pipeline workers. Construction had been halted, and campers stand by guarding the water, awaiting a ruling.

On the weekend of August 19 through 21, the camps in Standing Rock swelled dramatically, nearing three or four thousand, according to some estimates. Caravans of several cars from out of state poured in day and night. Busloads of people, and truckloads of supplies came. The central gathering area drew more and more newcomers, many of whom took to the microphone to read resolutions passed by their respective tribe, or to offer a prayer in their indigenous language from afar.

Young men sang songs from Haudenosaunee territory in the northeast, and Navajo women from the southwest stepped up in numbers to make frybread for the growing camp. Women and men of all nations stirred huge pots of soups and hot dishes on the fire. And as new groups entered and unloaded their donations and expressed their support, that beautiful feeling grew more palpable each and every time.

We showered each other with unity, strength, and love, and the outpour flowed continuously.

What many outsiders might not know, is that the gathering of hearts and minds in Standing Rock is truly an ensemble of some of the most brilliant indigenous intellects, the most respected of spiritual leaders, the most seasoned organizers and environmentalists, and solid organizations known for defending the sacred.

It was a great surprise that I even ran into a beloved college professor, whom I hadn’t seen in over a decade. Indigenous lawyers and paralegals were there, too, teachers, youth, and college students, veterans, government employees, entrepreneurs, medical doctors, athletes, runners, writers, journalists and photojournalists, musicians, artists, and entertainers. They were all there, and many still are. Mothers and grandmothers, children and even precious, tiny babies. Grandpas with their horses, and young men helping individual family camps with everything under the sun, from gathering wood, to delivering supplies.Water defenders gather along the banks of the Missouri River on August 20, 2016. Courtesy John Heminger.Water defenders gather along the banks of the Missouri River on August 20, 2016. Courtesy John Heminger.

You couldn’t have assembled a more powerful and able group. Today, we are stronger and more capable than ever to stand up to corporate greed and American attacks on all that we hold most precious. These are the defenders who stand together in Standing Rock.

Tribes from coast to coast were everywhere in the camps, flying their tribal flags and making new relatives. And I was delighted to run into relatives from across the Rocky Mountains, fellow Shoshone and Paiute people, coming together in the land of the Lakota and Dakota.

After spending only a few days there, I regrettably returned home to tend to “life on the outside,” as some have called it. I left deeply imprinted with the love and passion of thousands. I left changed, and like many, I am still adjusting to being away, leaving behind a power unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

Standing Rock Chairman, Dave Archambault II, articulated that feeling of longing and bitter sweet separation that so many of us can relate to as we departed camp. In a message shared on the Standing Rock Sioux Facebook page, he wrote, “it was like coming out of the Sundance; I didn’t want to go.”

Chairman Archambault closed his message, “I just kept thinking about the camp and I’d close my eyes and pray for everyone there and the future of our people. Praying for good long lives for all our nations.”

The Sacred Stone, Red Warrior, and Oceti Sakowin camps mark a place of strength and prayer. A bona-fide place of power. Water defenders and prayerful warriors hold the post, still, along the Missouri River in Standing Rock. Many caravans continue to come and go. Supplies and bodies are still needed. Prayers must remain constant.

When I close my eyes, I can still see the mist in the camp in the morning and feel the power in the shaking voices of the women who stormed in front of moving machinery to stop the pipeline construction as they told their stories late into the night.

Standing Rock has changed us forever. Our hearts are with the water, the land, and with each other. Today, we stand armed with the medicine of unity and prayer, and the strength of our ancestors. Still standing for water. Still standing for life.

In so many ways, we have already won.

Screen Shot 2016-01-23 at 2.38.28 PM Sarah Sunshine Manning (Shoshone-Paiute, Chippewa-Cree) is a mother, educator, activist, and an advocate for youth. Follow her at @SarahSunshineM.

Spirit Wins and Media Lies Lose at Standing Rock Protest

“We are tipis going up to see the stars. Enjoying the campfire with drums in the distance. Who can ask for more this very blessed night.” ~~An Elder at the Standing Rock Main Camp, Cannon Ball ND

Smells of sweet burning sage linger in the late evening and drift over the main camp on Highway 1806 at Cannon Ball North Dakota. Junior Cuero of the San Diego Campo Reservation chants the Bird Song, a mesmerizing, meditative and repetitive song of respect and honor to the Standing Rock people. A gourd rattle accompanies this ancient chant; a message given to the people by the Creator. Creator sent a bird to teach the People how to sing and dance and treat each other with empathy and not indifference. The sun is setting, bathing the campsite in warm light as the prairie winds begin to calm, and people gather around the campfire, feet tapping in rhythm.

There are two camps. One is located within the “official” reservation boundary and the second “main camp” with the majority of the protesters is located on U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s land just north of the Cannon Ball River. The North Dakota Department of Emergency Services says it is not on tribal property, but the original treaty line was moved in 1889, so if you support broken treaties, you could call it illegal. In this case legality is in the eye of the beholder.

The Dawes Act and the Allotment Act opened the reservations throughout the United States to settlement by non-Indians. The tribe maintains jurisdiction on all reservation lands, “including rights-of-way, waterways, and streams running through the reservation.” On paper, that is.

Standing Rock lies just south of the pipeline’s path under the Missouri River. How do you stop an oil spill at a boundary drawn on a map? Ask the people of Saskatchewan, who are facing 66,000 gallons of heavy crude from a broken pipeline owned by Husky Energy, Inc. It is making its way downstream and threatening the drinking water of several communities.

Despite local media accounts to the contrary, this gathering of Nations to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline are Spirit Camps of thoughtful prayer. There is no need to prolong the misinformation and outright lies perpetuated by the North Dakota Forum News Service. A governor steeped in the sticky flow of oil and money that has all but ruined portions of the North Dakota landscape feeds the news cycle with threats and lies about behavior at the encampments and issues emergency orders.

Truth about what fuels the reactions of authorities can be found in the discarded detritus of the failed oil boom. Abandoned RVs form small mountains in salvage yards, wells are shut down, man camps are ghost towns, and the promises of great wealth are only memory. The loss of oil revenue dollars provokes great fear in the offices of politicians. The Dakota Access Pipeline is really another name for the “abandoned” Keystone XL Pipeline and the goal is to wring every last drop of Bakken crude from North Dakota.

Authorities are reacting with anxiety that the pipeline will be compromised, and believe that concrete barricades along the main road to Standing Rock will stop the people from coming to protect their life source; water flowing from the mighty Missouri river.

But people continue to come, taking the long detour meant to complicate their journey to the Spirit Camp and reduce business at the Prairie Knights Casino and Hotel. But the authorities, despite the show of force at a “safety checkpoint” and rerouting of traffic on 1806 from Bismarck to Standing Rock, have failed. The hotel is almost full and the diversion along Highway 6 is spectacularly beautiful. Those who have purpose and appreciate the land and all it has to offer do not mind this “detour.”

Descendants of the Massacre at Wounded Knee by the Seventh Cavalry come. Young riders, many teenagers, come on their horses—they are some of the Big Foot Riders who travel 300 miles every year to Wounded Knee to pay respect to the ancestors who were massacred by the U.S. 7th Calvary Regiment. They, along with tribes from across the continent, do not want this pipeline that would involve 200 water crossings and pass through 300 sacred sites. They come. They come by car.

I am not sure how badly North Dakota wants this pipeline. If there is to be a battle over the pipeline, it will be here. For a people with nothing else but a land and a river, I would not bet against them. The great Lakota leader Mathew King once said, “ the only thing sadder than an Indian who is not free, is an Indian who does not remember what it is to be free.”

Let’s for a moment reject the profane response of North Dakota authorities and focus instead on the sacred.

So many have traveled great distances to stand in solidarity. Many Nations now united as one.

An Elder from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe talks of raising his granddaughter in the old ways. Seeing the tipis fills him with “cante waste”— “heart felt good.” M. Jay Cook is a member of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) School Board and says that sometimes raising his granddaughter “is my only motivation to live.” I receive a text from him one morning and a photo that is incredibly evocative of what is at stake here. He writes of the campfires and “hearing memories of growing up in iron lightning” as the stars speak to him of days gone by. He intends to “face the storm (oil) like the Tatanka (Buffalo) Nation.”

Photo by M. Jay Cook

Hazel Red Bird is 91 years old and a regal presence around the campfire. Many stop to greet her and share stories of growing up in Fort Yates. Red Bird is now back home at Standing Rock after living a good part of her life in Wisconsin. She is a true warrior woman, having enlisted in the Army Air Corps during World War II to train as a nurse at St. Mary’s School of Nursing in Pierre, South Dakota. The Great War ended just as her training did, and she began her working life as a registered nurse in the civilian white world.

Hazel Red Bird by Georgianne Nienaber

Red Bird surveys the gathering and says she is “amazed, thankful and humbled.” Then she glances down at the writer’s notepad to make certain those three words are written accurately.

“I am amazed because I didn’t think I would live long enough to witness this unity and resiliency among the Nations.”

Red Bird is quiet for a moment as her eyes narrow and she surveys the movement of the people who have gathered around the green tent that serves as a food and information center.

“I am thankful that I have lived 91 winters and humbled that prayers have been answered.”

At 91, this elegant Lakota woman still projects a warrior’s stance. There is more to learn about this fascinating woman who is also a repository of the Lakota language, and you can read more here.

There are other spiritual warriors who have gathered in joyful celebration and unity. Several young women from the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe wanted to make it very clear that they “are standing for our water.” Their ancestors fought and died along the northern and eastern shores of the Missouri River.

Renee Gonzales by Georgianne Nienaber

The Crow Creek Indian Reservation was established by executive order following what was known as the Minnesota Uprising, as a prison camp for the exiled Isanti Dakota and Winnebago people. These were the survivors, mostly women and children, of the largest known public execution in American History, “The Hanging of 38 Dakota Men at Mankato Minnesota.” From 1863 to 1866 approximately 300 died at Fort Thompson suffering from starvation, sickness, disease, exposure, hardship, and heartache.

A federal judge will rule on the legality of the Dakota Access Pipeline on September 9. It remains to be seen whether the traumatic past will be repeated and define the present. How much can be endured; how much more can be stolen? This is a spiritual battle for generations to come. Clean water and air is a right, not an option.

“There is a time,” Mario Savio famously said just more than half a century ago, “when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop.”

That’s easier said than done, but you’ve got to make a start.

Take the hideous long black Earth-poisoning and planet-baking snake that is the Bakken Pipeline. Beneath the cover of the endless presidential election season, which in Iowa started a year and a half ago, the Texas-based company Dakota Access LLC (a division of the corporation Energy Transfer Partners [ETP]) has moved methodically ahead with its plan to build this ugly, winding, and eco-cidal tube of death. The $4 billion, 1134-mile project would carry 540,000 barrels of largely fracked crude oil from North Dakota’s “Bakken oil patch” daily on a diagonal course through South Dakota, a Sioux Indian burial ground,18 Iowa counties, and a Native American reservation to Patoka, Illinois. It will link with another pipeline that will transport the black gold to terminals and refineries along the Gulf of Mexico.

Last March, five weeks after Bernie Sanders (who opposed the pipeline) essentially tied Hillary Clinton in the Iowa Caucus, the corporate-captive Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) approved the giant Iowa portion of the project, granting Dakota Access eminent domain across the entire route. It was the company’s last major administrative hurdle for Dakota Access.

The IUB’s decision last March was rich with Orwellian irony. Iowa law forbids the condemning of agricultural land for private development. It is true, as Dakota Access argues, that the law excludes utilities under the jurisdiction of the IUB from the private development limitation. And that includes pipelines, if they serve a “public purpose.” But the pipeline would simply transport oil through Iowa and therefore serves no discernible public good for the state and in fact promises to do considerable harm to the state’s environmental and financial health. Opponents rightly point out that like all pipelines, it will eventually spill, and Dakota Access, LLC will leave Iowa holding the bag for the cleanup. Like something out of Kafka, the IUB will have no power to enforce any kind of public regulations whatsoever on the operators of the private interstate pipeline they approved as a “public utility.”

The IUB’s decision was another example among many that Iowa is up for sale to Big Business under the right wing administration of Republican governor Terry Branstad.

The stakes are high. “If the Bakken Pipeline is built,” the progressive lobbying and activist organization Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) notes, “it would seriously harm Iowa’s already impaired water quality, threaten the integrity of the fertile farmland of thousands of everyday Iowans, and contribute to our dependence on fossil fuels. This steers us away from developing renewable energy infrastructure and curbing the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.”

No small problem, that. By all scientific and lived experiential indications, anthropogenic – really capitalism-o-genic – global warming is pushing the planet at an ever escalating pace to full-on ecosystem collapse.

The IUB decision and the federal governments’ failure to intervene against the pipeline have helped DA bring in a significant capital infusion from the giant Canadian pipeline company Enbridge and from Marathon Petroleum. The two corporations recently put up $2 billion ($1.5 billion from Enbridge and $500,000 from Marathon to purchase 49 percent of the Bakken Pipeline. A likely consequence should the project be completed is that Canadian tar sands oil will flow through the pipeline and Iowa and toward the Gulf Coast. That oil is one of the most carbon-rich, planet-cooking fossil fuels on Earth. Dire environmental concern about the mining of Canadian tar sands oil was the main reason that climate activists like Bill McKibben engaged in high-profile protests of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline – a leading news story a few years ago.

Here in Iowa, anti-pipeline activists have been playing by all the official local, state, and federal rules. They’ve gone through the established channels of law and procedure. They’ve worked the legal and regulatory machinery to the point of exhaustion. They’ve gone through all available avenues of reason and petition. They’ve written and delivered carefully worded petitions and given polite, fact-filled testimony to all the relevant public bodies. They’ve appealed to the IUB. They’ve appealed to the Army Corps of Engineers and to numerous other federal agencies and offices including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Advisory on Historic Preservation, and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration. They’ve sued in court, defending farmers’ traditional American-as-apple-pie private property rights. Along the way they’ve presidentially caucused for Sanders (who denounced the pipeline in some of his Iowa speeches and advertisements. They’ve reached out to Hillary Clinton, who switched from pro- to anti-Keystone Pipeline for campaign purposes (but who nonetheless cozies up to leading fracking companies) after leaving her position as U.S. Secretary of State. They give citizens a flyer asking them to call the White House and tell Barack Obama that “This is the new Keystone XL. You can stop this pipeline. You must stop this pipeline.”

And it’s all been for naught because the state is stuck in the deep pockets of Big Carbon. Last week a long-awaited district court ruling in Des Moines gave DA, ETP, Enbridge, and Marathon and their big financial backers what they wanted. DA is free to complete construction on fifteen parcels where the farm owners had challenged the state’s right to enforce eminent domain on behalf of the Bakken snake. Construction crews composed disproportionately of out-of-state workers (contrary to DA’s claim that the pipeline meant a jobs windfall for Iowans) are now working feverishly to lay as much pipe as they can before landowners’ challenge can perhaps make it to the Iowa Supreme Court (where DA will win) – and before cold weather sets in. Many hundreds of acres of lush topsoil and nearly harvest-ready crops are being torn up along the pipeline’s sinister path as I write these words.

All of which has brought Iowa activists to the conclusion that while scientific evidence and legal arguments are useful and necessary, direct citizen action in defiance of corporate-rigged law and “regulation” is required to save our water, land, and livable ecology. Yesterday (I am writing on the afternoon of Thursday, September 1st, 2016), more than 100 activists connected to CCI and the anti-pipeline groups Bold Iowa and One Hundred Grannies for a Livable Future undertook civil disobedience at four entrance to a DA construction staging ground in Boon County in central Iowa. Twenty-eight of those activists were arrested and taken away by Iowa state troopers for the crime of trespassing – blocking the movement of DA vehicles.

Here is an eloquent and short speech given just prior to the direct people’s action by the leading environmental lawyer Carolyn Raffensperger:

“I’m here on behalf of future generations…”

“When the law is far apart from justice, the law must fall. “

“A law that allows the private property of landowners to be taken… and given to a polluting pipeline company – that law must fall.”

“To allow the pollution of our drinking water is insane. It is not just. The law that would allow that must fall. “

“This is an illegitimate pipeline. Any kind of vote, any kind of ratification that allows that must fall. Justice must prevail.”

“We stand for justice. The tree of life stands for justice.”

The indomitable Maria Kashia, a leader of One Hundred Grannies for a Livable Future, spoke with equal passion and eloquence prior to the arrests:

“We are here to defend and protect. We are here out of love for our earth and future generations.”

“We are not here to hate. We are here because of the illegitimate ant-democratic process that has created this great threat to rivers and our soil.”

“We are here in solidarity with our Native American brothers and sisters to stop the black snake that threatens their water and ours.”

“We are here because we are informed about the undeniable reality of the climate crisis that is already destroying life on our planet home.”

“We are watching as the glaciers melt. Oceans heat and rise. People die of heat and starvation due to drought. Great fires burn our forests all over the planet. And floods wash away communities and lives.”

“We know that those Dakota Access workers need jobs. We want clean green jobs for them. And we are working very hard toward that.”

“But this pipeline is not going to serve the common good. This pipeline will destroy, pillage, pollute, and plunder for profit, not for people and nature.”

“‘It is horrifying,” Ansel Adams once wrote, ‘that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.’”

Words, like science and law, are useful but then there’s the realm of deeds: the stoppage of the assembly or killing line, the burning of the draft cards, the occupation of the university administration building, the refusal to participate in war crimes, and the blocking of pipeline construction trucks enlisted in pillage, pollution, and plunder for profit, not the common good.

Let’s be very clear and honest about what we are up against here and around the world. Big Carbon and 21st century petro-capitalism are literally engaged in the Greenhouse Carbon-gassing to death of life on Earth. That is a bigger crime than even those of the Nazis, many whose top commanders justly hanged at Nuremberg.

I suppose I have some political and philosophical differences with some of my fellow pipeline opponents in Iowa. I’m more Marxist and also more anarchist and Edward Abbey-ite and less pacifist in background and spirit than many of them. But these differences do not feel all that terribly big or relevant right now. I have the greatest respect and admiration for the Iowa pipeline fighters who have put their freedom and bodies on the line for the common good – and for their many comrades fighting the petro-capitalist pillaging of the planet across the country and world. You can donate to the legal defense of these social and environmental heroes and heroines here.Join the debate on Facebook

Paul Street’s latest book is They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy (Paradigm, 2014)

Oil pipeline protest turns violent in southern North DakotaA protest of a four-state oil pipeline turned violent after tribal officials say construction crews destroyed American Indian burial and other cultural sites on private land in southern North Dakota

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A protest of a four-state, $3.8 billion oil pipeline turned violent Saturday after tribal officials say construction crews destroyed American Indian burial and cultural sites on private land in southern North Dakota.

Morton County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Donnell Preskey said four private security guards and two guard dogs were injured after several hundred protesters confronted construction crews Saturday afternoon at the site just outside the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. One of the security officers was taken to a Bismarck hospital for undisclosed injuries. The two guard dogs were taken to a Bismarck veterinary clinic, Preskey said.

Tribe spokesman Steve Sitting Bear said protesters reported that six people had been bitten by security dogs, including a young child. At least 30 people were pepper-sprayed, he said. Preskey said law enforcement authorities had no reports of protesters being injured.

There were no law enforcement personnel at the site when the incident occurred, Preskey said. The crowd disbursed when officers arrived and no one was arrested, she said.

The incident occurred within half a mile of an encampment where hundreds of people have gathered to join the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's protest of the oil pipeline that is slated to cross the Missouri River nearby.

The tribe is challenging the Army Corps of Engineers' decision to grant permits for Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access pipeline, which crosses the Dakotas and Iowa to Illinois, including near the reservation in southern North Dakota. A federal judge will rule before Sept. 9 whether construction can be halted on the Dakota Access pipeline.

Energy Transfer Partners did not return phone calls and emails from The Associated Press on Saturday seeking comment.

The tribe fears it's a project they fear will disturb sacred sites and impact drinking water for thousands of tribal members on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and millions further downstream.

The protest Saturday came one day after the tribe filed court papers saying it found several sites of "significant cultural and historic value" along the path of the proposed pipeline.

Tribal preservation officer Tim Mentz said in court documents that the tribe was only recently allowed to survey private land north of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Mentz said researchers found burials rock piles called cairns and other sites of historic significance to Native Americans.

Standing Rock Sioux chairman David Archambault II said in a statement that construction crews removed topsoil across an area about 150 feet wide stretching for 2 miles.

"This demolition is devastating," Archambault said. "These grounds are the resting places of our ancestors. The ancient cairns and stone prayer rings there cannot be replaced. In one day, our sacred land has been turned into hollow ground."

Preskey said the company filmed the confrontation by helicopter and turned the video over to authorities. Protesters also have posted some of the confrontation on social media.

Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said in a statement that "individuals crossed onto private property and accosted private security officers with wooden posts and flag poles."

"Any suggestion that today's event was a peaceful protest, is false," his statement said.

Oil pipeline protest turns violent in southern North DakotaA protest of a four-state oil pipeline turned violent after tribal officials say construction crews destroyed American Indian burial and other cultural sites on private land in southern North Dakota

I just removed the embedded video because every time I load the DD page, it autoplays commercials from the extractors and vomits forth their propaganda. Very intrusive and consistent with their morality.

Oil pipeline protest turns violent in southern North DakotaA protest of a four-state oil pipeline turned violent after tribal officials say construction crews destroyed American Indian burial and other cultural sites on private land in southern North Dakota

I just removed the embedded video because every time I load the DD page, it autoplays commercials from the extractors and vomits forth their propaganda. Very intrusive and consistent with their morality.

10 Ways You Can Help the Standing Rock Sioux Fight the Dakota Access PipelineAuthor Rowan Wolf Date September 8, 2016

=By= Jay Syrmopoulos

Stand with the folks at Standing Rock. They are brave and committed, but it is flesh against steel as they are try to hold the line until either the courts or Obama put a stop to this drive across sacred land. Help however you can – including spreading the message about what is going on.

Cannon Ball, ND – While many Americans passively support the Standing Rock Sioux’s fight to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, aside from showing up in Cannon Ball, North Dakota (which many simply can’t do) – to actively participate in the protests – most people are unsure of what they can actually do to support the Sioux at Standing Rock aside from posting on social media.

Here is a list of ten things that people can do to show their support. Some methods may be more effective than others, but the key is utilizing multiple avenues of resistance in an effort to provide full spectrum resistance against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

1. Call North Dakota governor Jack Dalrymple at 701-328-2200. When leaving a message stating your thoughts about this subject please be professional.

The most effective means of showing support for this cause is to actively participate in protecting this sacred land. Anyone who is able to travel to the peaceful encampments is encouraged to do so. For those unable to make the journey to North Dakota, please utilize the alternate methods provided to show your support for the Standing Rock Sioux who have united over 100 tribes from across the U.S. Please join this effort to stop this pipeline, which desecrates sacred lands and has serious potential to damage or destroy the Standing Rock reservations lifeblood – its water.

What you need to know about the Dakota Access pipelinePlay Video2:34A U.S. Judge ruled against a Native American tribe seeking an injunction on a pipeline under construction in North Dakota. The anti-pipeline protest has become a rallying point for Native Americans across the United States. Here's what you need to know. (Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)

A federal judge ruled Friday against the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s request for a preliminary injunction to halt construction on the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline that the tribe says endangers sacred burial grounds and could threaten its water supply from Lake Oahe, a dammed section of the Missouri river.

But in a development that stunned even the tribe’s lawyers, the decision by District Judge James E. Boasberg was effectively put on hold by a federal order to stop construction near the tribe’s reservation until the Army Corps of Engineers can revisit its previous decisions in the disputed portion.

The tribe’s lawyers had argued that the Army Corps of Engineers had not properly consulted with the tribe on questions of environmental impact and historical preservation as required by law. Boasberg found that the corps had complied with the law in approving permits for the pipeline and that the tribe had not demonstrated that “irreparable harm will ensure.”

Within minutes of Boasberg’s ruling, however, the departments of Justice, Army and Interior issued an unusual joint statement related to the disputed land. Thousands of Native Americans have camped out nearby in protest, and the showdown between tribe members and construction workers had grown increasingly tense.

“We appreciate the District Court’s opinion on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act. However, important issues raised by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other tribal nations and their members regarding the Dakota Access pipeline specifically, and pipeline-related decision-making generally, remain,” read the joint statement issued by the Justice, Army and Interior departments.

“This case has highlighted the need for a serious discussion on whether there should be nationwide reform with respect to considering tribes’ views on these types of infrastructure projects. Therefore, this fall, we will invite tribes to formal, government-to-government consultations on two questions: (1) within the existing statutory framework, what should the federal government do to better ensure meaningful tribal input into infrastructure-related reviews and decisions and the protection of tribal lands, resources, and treaty rights; and (2) should new legislation be proposed to Congress to alter that statutory framework and promote those goals.”

The fight is being waged over a 1,172-mile pipeline through four states that could transport more than a half-million barrels of oil each day.

For tribal leaders, the government’s announcement immediately following the court’s ruling against it was a huge victory.

“Our hearts are full; this an historic day for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and for tribes across the nation,” said Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.“Native peoples have suffered generations of broken promises and today the federal government said that national reform is needed to better ensure that tribes have a voice on infrastructure projects like this pipeline.”

A spokeswoman for Dakota Access declined to comment for this article. A collection of business organizations supporting the pipeline, the MAIN Coalition, said the government’s action halting constructionwas “deeply troubling and could have a long-lasting chilling effect on private infrastructure development in the United States.”

In July, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The complaint said that the Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL, could discharge materials “at multiple locations in the tribe’s ancestral lands” without proper permitting.

Tribal leaders have argued that leaks from the pipeline would impact the Missouri River, a source of water for 8,000 residents of a reservation about a mile away from where the pipeline would cross.

In addition, the complaint said that the pipeline “crosses areas of great historical and cultural significance to the tribe, the potential damage or destruction of which greatly injures the tribe and its members.”

Boasberg had partially granted an order in the case in advance of today’s ruling.

The Army Corps of Engineers said in a filing this week that it did not oppose a motion for a temporary restraining order until Boasberg ruled. In that filing, the agency said it believed that it “fulfilled its statutory responsibilities” and felt it would win out. But the corps added that due to the confrontations stemming from the project, the restraining order would essentially be “preserving peace” until a ruling came down.

Dakota Access has said that underground oil pipelines are safe. On its website, the company says that it will take precautions to safeguard culturally or environmentally sensitive areas.

The showdown in North Dakota has also blossomed into a larger fight that has drawn thousands of Native Americans from across the country, joining to combat what they describe as mistreatment in the case.

When workers recently plowed under locations mentioned by the tribe in a court filing as being sacred or historic, tribe members tried to intercede and were stopped by private security workers, some using guard dogs and pepper spray. The resulting photos showed snarling dogs lunging at protesters; a tribal spokesman said demonstrators were bitten, while the sheriff’s department said private security guards as well as dogs were also hurt.

The protest has made headlines around the world, and while overseas this week, President Obama was questioned about the ongoing standoff by a young Malaysian woman at a town hall in Laos.

She asked what Obama could do “to ensure the protection of ancestral land and the supply of clean water, and also environmental justice is upheld?” He did not address the pipeline directly, but acknowledged that “the way that Native Americans were treated was tragic.”

Many tribal leaders say Obama has done more for Native Americans in his two terms than all of his predecessors combined. The administration has given land back to tribes and worked one-on-one with tribal governments, and it is cracking down on crime in Indian Country. “The best thing that’s happened to Indian Country has been President Obama being elected,” said Archambault II, after the president and First Lady Michelle Obama visited Standing Rock in 2014.

Obama said later that they emerged from a private conversation at a school in Cannon Ball, N.D., “shaken because some of these kids were carrying burdens no young person should ever have to carry. And it was heartbreaking.”